


Cards

by tei



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Card Games, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:26:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tei/pseuds/tei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel and Spike play cards, and remember. Takes place during AtS S5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cards

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the tamingthemuse prompt "flashback" in June 2015.
> 
>  

Sometimes, that year, they almost feel human.

The first time they play cards, it is because Spike refuses to leave his office. He seems to have decided that in the absence of any other useful purpose to his renewed unlife, his holy mission will be to annoy Angel to an early second grave. Tonight, it's a detailed dissection of the strange and disgusting eating habits of all the other demons in the Wolfram and Hart office. Angel slaps down the deck, exasperated, hoping at the very least that if they play, maybe Spike will stop talking.

Instead, Angel finds that he starts talking himself.

“Surprised I remember the rules of this,” he mutters as he deals the cards for his first round of two-player All Fours in over two hundred years.

Spike seems surprised that Angel has offered any non-essential conversation at all, and tentatively answers, “I find a lot of it… just sticks. The human stuff.”

“Know what you mean,” Angel mutters. _I was in the bar_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say. Not to Spike, never to Spike of all people. _I was sixteen. There was a bet. Me and some other lout. The loser had to pay for the other’s first night with a woman. She was a prostitute who worked at the place. I think I cheated the game, somehow. I don't remember that bit. I wonder who I could have turned out as, if I hadn’t won that night._ He tries to clear the memory out of his mind as he chooses the trump suit. Spike is gazing at him curiously; the brat always was irritatingly perceptive of the emotional states of others.

“Did you… ever play cards? Before?” Angel can hardly believe he’s actually _inviting_ Spike to talk about himself, but it’s better than the alternative. He keeps his eyes down, considering his cards.

Spike shrugs warily. “Sure. A bit. _Patience_ , mostly.” He glances at Angel, waiting for some sort of jab about playing card games by himself, but it doesn’t come.  He sighs, and figures he can’t possibly sink any lower in Angel’s eyes than he is already. Might as well say it out loud. “Mum bought me a book, not too long before I met Dru. _Amusement for Invalids_. It explained how to play. She said it would do me good since I spent so much time alone.”

“Useful skill,” is all Angel says.

“S’pose.”

Angel wins that week. And the next, when Spike shows up as if he has a goddamn appointment, sitting down opposite Angel’s desk with his own deck of cards. After a few weeks, it evens out, as they begin to learn each others’ play. They never really discuss why they keep doing it, as if they didn’t have anything more productive to do than play cards at Angel’s fancy desk while the world crumbles around them. Sometimes, though, they do talk.

Humanity, they have learned, is a fickle and fleeting thing. But sometimes, that year, with each other, they remember.

**Author's Note:**

> [It's a real book!](http://www.amazon.ca/Amusement-Invalids-Annie-B-Henshaw/dp/1161985921)


End file.
